BOTTOMS UP
My days are devoted to the killing of cockroaches, who share my scuzzy, single apartment in Hollywood. I’m drinking around the clock, but to diminishing returns. I have to drink more and more to achieve the desired affect—Blotto. I buy my booze at different liquor stores, so that the guys behind the counter don’t recognize me as a drunk. My body wakes me up in the middle of night, demanding alcohol. I sleep with a cheap bottle of vodka under my bed, and I am gifted tiny vials of cocaine from a sweetheart of a dealer, who knows I can no longer afford to pay.
A growing paranoia darkens my shrinking world; I sleep with a carrot peeler on the bedside table. Suspecting my phone is bugged, I take it completely apart, forgetting that it was disconnected months ago. Other than liquor runs, I hardly ever leave the apartment, but when I do, I suspect I’m being followed. I don’t want anyone to witness what I’ve become. My
1
Blotto
only human contact is with the mailman, through the slot. For years, I drank exclusively hi-end booze, like the brands I was weened on, from my parents’ liquor cabinets. Now, I’ll guzzle anything at all, including, in desperate moments, Paco Rabanne cologne.
I’m not a bad guy—I’m well educated. I love my mother. I floss semi-regularly. So, how did I wind up like this, at thirty- years-old? Allow me take you back to where it all began, as I remember it...